My Mission Experience

Hey people!
How are things going with you back in Washington? Things are going fine here in Edmond. The weather has been unbelievable. I am loving that! Well, tonight is Halloween and our mission president doesn’t want us out at all, so we are just going to study and stuff at our apartment. It should be lame! 🙂

So, how is the weather there? Has it been getting chilly at all or anything? Hopefully it snows soon. The weather this year has been freaky. It was the hottest summer on record, and now it’s getting cold faster than usual. It’s bizarre, but that sounds about right for Oklahoma weather.
Well, I really don’t have anything new to report. Everything has been about the same stuff. We played some ultimate Frisbee today with the other missionaries and some members from the University Ward. That was pretty fun. The weather was just around 70, and it was sunny, so it was the perfect day. You couldn’t ask for a better one, I don’t think.
Well, that’s about all I’ve got. I wrote Madi a letter today, and I put it in the mail, hopefully it makes it to Washington 🙂
I love you all!
Love,
Elder Peper

So, Things are going great here in Edmond! It maybe sounds like I will stay here for my last transfer. I sure hope so. Transfers are a week from Wednesday, so I will keep you posted. Actually, from the very unreliable and leaked information I have, it sounds like we will both be staying here in Edmond. That will be cool as well.

Last week, we had a baptism. It was really awesome, and spiritual. His name is Kevin, and he is a really awesome guy. We also have a baptism coming up this Saturday, which I am super excited about! Anyway, that’s what’s been going on in Edmond so far. Things are awesome! Love you tons! Have a great week!

It was good to hear from home. Sounds like everyone is having a great time, and it sounds like things are going awesome back home, as usual. I’m pretty sick of the weather here. This past June was the hottest June on record for Oklahoma City and you can tell. There hasn’t been much rain and it’s been hot. The wind has been described as a constant blow dryer in your face. I would love some 80 degree weather about now, I hope you don’t take that awesome weather for granted. It looks like it is going to be over 100 for the next two weeks. Hopefully, I will be alive by the time September hits. We shall see.

I do like Edmond a ton, though. The people are pretty awesome, and it’s pretty as well. We are working with some pretty awesome investigators as well. We figured out that the bus system in Edmond is free, so we have been taking advantage of that quite a bit lately. It gets us out of the heat and everything, so that’s awesome. It also takes us down to Oklahoma City for free, which in part is in our ward boundaries. It helps us out a lot.

So, yesterday was the 4th of July. President Taylor said that we could all stay out and watch the fireworks show. The University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond was the location of the fireworks show. I guess CNN and USA Today rated this fireworks show in the top 10 places to be for the Fourth of July in the country. It was honestly the coolest fireworks show I think I have ever seen. It was awesome and the finale was amazing. I cant’ describe why…just tons of explosions I guess. We sat SUPER close to where they launched them, and we have all kinds of ash and debris from the fireworks raining on us. It was pretty awesome. I enjoyed myself.

Well, that’s about all I have to share. Love you tons! Stop being so trunky, Mom!

Things have been a lot better in Altus. I had tons of fun this week, and we had a bunch of good stuff happen. One crazy story that we had was on the way home from temple conference. We were driving on I-44 between Chickasha and Lawton. The sisters were following us, and we had a 3 way call between us, the sisters, and the Duncan Elders. The Duncan Elders were on highway 81, so they weren’t near us. We started seeing some pretty sweet lighting jet accross the sky in front of us. So, I had Elder King take a video, and he got a pretty decent shot of some lightning. Anyway, the weather got progressively worse as we got close to the source of the lightning. At one point we saw a HUGE gray thing sweeping across the freeway. I said, “What the heck is that?” Well, we soon found out as we drove right into it. It was immense amounts of rain, hail, and straight line winds. It was hard to keep the car going straight, and it was even harder to see 10 feet in front of yourself. It was crazy stuff. A bunch of cars on the freeway had pulled over. So we did, and the sisters did as well. We were all kind of sitting there using this hill as a semi-wind blocker. After a couple of minutes Elder King said a prayer on the phone with the sisters, and we waited a few more seconds. The weather cleared up, but just a tad. It was still crazy stuff, but you could see a little bit further. I started to drive and the Sisters followed me. Elder King was a little worried about driving into the storm, but my logic was that it would be safer to drive trough the storm (we were heading southwest) then to wait it out and risk a tornado dropping on top of out tin can of a car. So, we drove through the storm. We had to drive quite slowly actually, but in just a few minutes we were out of the worst of it. And then it was just drizzling through Lawton. That was quite the adventure. Good times!

Well, transfer calls came in last night. I am going to be going to Edmond 1st/ the UCO University ward.My companion is going to be Elder Burnett, who is awesome. I hear it’s a really good area. The coolest thing is that I will be in a district with Elder Rivas again! That is going to be a blast, for sure! Edmond is a suburb of Oklahoma City. It’s on the North side of the city and, from what I hear, a more upscale part of town, so we shall see what missionary work is like there. I’m sure it will be great, I have only heard good things about Edmond.

Well, that is all of my adventures to tell you about this week. I sure am going to miss tons of people here in Altus, but I’ll be back one day, I’m sure. I love you guys, I hope you have a good vacation! Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

I am going to start out with a story. It’s not very spiritual this week, but it is pretty cool: There was a pretty significant storm that was coming right for Altus, but ended up kind of bending around the town, so most of the good stuff missed us. However, we were kind of waiting it out. We were at a member’s home, and decided that it was a safe time to leave. So, we got into the car and started to drive away. I looked up in the rear view mirror and just saw a huge wall of gray and wind. I was like, “What the freaking heck was that?” Then it started swirling and coming right at us. It completely engulfed the member’s house and headed down the street right for us. It was nuts! And then it was all over, as quickly as it started. We’re pretty sure it wasn’t a tornado, though. It wasn’t connected with the clouds, and it did no damage. Basically, from the information I’ve gathered, it was an over sized dust devil that occurs sometimes during thunderstorms called gustnados, but I could be wrong. I’m not a meteorologist. Some missionaries in our district got some good pictures of funnel clouds trying to make contact with the ground. They said that they saw one that looked like it hit the ground. The weather here is nuts, and tornado season isn’t quite over yet.

Things are going well in Altus. Elder King is awesome and we are doing great. I remember Dad asking on Mother’s Day about Church HQ referrals (mormon.org, pass along cards, etc.) and I told him that I haven’t had one that worked out. Well, that all changed this past couple of weeks, so now I’m eating my words. There is a family that we are teaching now. Their story is that the husband Googled “free bible” and he ended up on mormon.org. We tried to see them and to call them a few times, with no luck. Sometimes we had a response, but they weren’t really interested in us coming over or anything. About a week later, we got another referral from the same family. We tried a couple more times, and again, no luck. Finally we said that we would go knock on their door one more time and if they didn’t answer, we would have to drop them. So, we did, and they let us right in and we taught them a first lesson. They have a baptismal date for the middle of June right now, and they are awesome. Pretty cool stuff.

We tracted a street yesterday (Sunday) and talked to one person, who wasn’t interested, then the next house we taught a doorstep first lesson and got a new investigator. The whole rest of the street, not one person answered their door. So, I guess we knew why we went to that street yesterday. Oh, I had the privilege of interviewing a baptismal candidate for baptism on Saturday for the first time. That was definitely a very interesting experience. It was really neat, though. I’ve never been on the other side of an interview before.

Well, everything else is going good. Thanks for being the greatest family that has ever lived! I love you guys tons and bunches and 100 pounds! Let me know if you need or want anything from Oklahoma!

Things sure are working out here in Altus. Elder Chronister, however was replaced by Elder McGill yesterday. Elder Chronister was awesome, and so is Elder McGill so I am content. Things sure are looking good, though. We had 4 baptisms yesterday. A family got baptized, and it was the coolest thing ever. We were also able to set two more dates on Saturday, and they seem pretty solid. I’m so glad for the chance to be here in Altus. I can’t really explain it, but things are just going really well.

Elder Chronister and I had a good few weeks, and now I’m excited for what’s next. I think that we’ll both be able to help the ward out here.

I’m not really sure what all to say, there is not much that is horribly new, other than a new companion. I’m glad to hear that you guys all had a good time in Salt Lake. I was pretty jealous about that, but I know what I’m doing is important and I need to be here doing it. I have never had a happier time in my life than when I can see how much the gospel changes people. Even if the people all ready have a deep rooted faith. The gospel doesn’t take away their faith, it just adds to it beyond their wildest dreams. I love to see people change for the better and become happy.

Altus is doing pretty good. It’s starting to grow on me. The people here are really nice. We have been tracting quite a bit, and everyone has been, at least, polite to us. So, I’m very thankful for that. We have a TON of small towns outside of Altus that we cover as well, and some of those are pretty cool. One is Hobart, OK. It is a nice small town. It reminds me of an Oklahoman version of Colville. It’s nice there.

This week we were tracting and finding a few potential investigators. One instance we weren’t finding anyone when Elder Chronister turned to me and said, “Why is it that it’s always the ‘last house’ where missionaries find someone to teach?” I had never thought about it before, but then I realized that I had heard a ton of “last house” stories before. But, I sort of laughed and shrugged it off. Well, as my obvious foreshadowing would lead you to infer, the last house that we tracted into, a lady answered the door. She had met with missionaries before and had a Book of Mormon and was really interested in us coming back to visit with her, so we’re going to do that this week. It was pretty cool.

Well, not too much else to say…Oh, other than we have a baptism coming up on Sunday. A family of 4 (a mom and her 3 children) are all getting baptized on Sunday. It’s pretty cool and really exciting. We also have quite a few good prospects, so things are going really well here. I’m glad to be here in Altus.

Well, hope you guys are well. Let me know if I can do anything for you. Love you tons! (Call you in a couple of months).

About

Elder Peper is currently serving a two-year mission (December 2009 – December 2011) for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Oklahoma-Oklahoma City Mission. Elder Peper’s home ward is the Colville 1st Ward, Colville, Washington. His parents are posting the updates to this blog.